EXPERTS: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

The Founding Director of the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians at Columbus State University, in McCullers's hometown of Columbus, Georgia, and the Founding President of the Carson McCullers Society, a scholarly organization dedicated to the study of McCullers's life and work, Dr. Carlos L. Dews is the editor of Carson McCullers's posthumously published autobiography, Illumination and Night Glare (University of Wisconsin Press, 1999) and the editor of The Complete Novels of Carson McCullers (Library of America, 2001). Dews has also written numerous articles and encyclopedia entries about McCullers's life and work. Dews was a professor English at the University of West Florida from 1994 to 2003 and chairperson of the Department of English and Foreign Languages at the University of West Florida from 2001 to 2003. In addition to his work on Carson McCullers, Dews also edited two volumes of essays with Carolyn Leste Law, Out in the South (2001) and This Fine Place So Far From Home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class (1995) both published by Temple University Press. Born and reared in East Texas, Dews studied at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Minnesota. Dews is currently at work on a book about Carson McCullers's friendship with Tennessee Williams.